Mercury Glass Tutorial with Glitter!

Mercury glass has a warm comfortable glow along with an irresistible shine.  As it is becoming increasingly popular with decorating trends I decided to add mercury glass to the decorations for the mermaid tea party (think mermaid meets vintage meets shipwreck) .  I felt like it would lend to the shipwreck feel and then I saw how much it cost, oh it wrecked my wallet. 

Solution - the internet of course.    

There are lots and lots of tutorials out there.  They all had the Krylon LookingGlass spray paint in common.   Per the manufactures instructions, the paint is applied to the reverse side of the glass.  Then various forms of distressing could be applied/performed.    I wasn’t too keen on treating the glass after it was painted so this is what I tried instead. 

Spray paint choices

Preparation tip, I wrapped the outside of the candle holders/vase with newspaper and clear pacing tape to protect the outside from over spray. 

wrap the outside

I applied glitter spray paint first and then the looking glass spray paint, both to the reverse side of the glass.  I was hoping the glitter would break up the “glass” appearance creating the distressed mercury glass look without any additional hands on time.  

First of all the glitter blast was not the best choice.  It is  for full coverage glitter so I applied a few little bursts.  Unfortunately it gave the glass a dull appearance. Great product, I used it for some other applications, just not this one.  See how dull the finished product is.

                                                                                                                                                                       

So on to what else didn’t work.  I got these cute Fleur -de-lis candle holders at Hobby Lobby, some clear and some blue.  The instructions for the spray paint say the surface has to be clean and dry.  Hot soapy water fail.  I managed to salvage the second one sort of. For what I can figure, the "blue" was a lacquer applied to the outside of clear glass.  

So on to what worked.  The glitter spray paint!  Instead of spray paint marketed for full coverage I went with more of a subtle glittery-ness spray paint.  The glitter spray paint was applied first in a few light coats; uneven is fine perhaps even better.  Let that dry and continued with the looking glass paint as described.  

I tried it on a vase, note the subtle gold glitter. 

Cracked glass, turned out quite pretty.

Blue slightly ruined candle holders, probably my favorite!

And clear glass.

I like the effect the gold glitter brought to the whole experience.  Very shipwreck with out wrecking my wallet.